[1] According to a Bernama report, Sabah police commissioner Jauteh Dikun has said the police will advise the state government to postpone Israel Houghton’s concerts in Kota Kinabalu, scheduled for 22 to 25 October, should a formal application be submitted. He cited public reaction and community sensitivities, amid reported concerns over the singer’s name and his support for Israel. And, tellingly, two police reports.[1]
[2] Who lodged these reports? The police have not said. But a day later, the United Sabah Islamic Association (USIA) and several state Islamic NGOs issued a joint statement urging the authorities to review the concert permit and announcing that they, too, would lodge a police report.[2] They insist their objection rests on humanitarian principles and solidarity with Palestine, not on religion or race.
[3] Still, the question stands: should a handful of organisations, however sincere, determine what the rest of us may attend? If a few police reports are enough to stop a concert, then any determined group can veto any event it dislikes simply by walking into a police station. That is not public order; it’s bending to pressure from the few at the expense of the many.
[4] One must also ask whether the authorities apply the same standard to everyone. Over the years, numerous police reports have been lodged against preachers who have insulted and demeaned other faiths from public platforms. Few appear to have led to any meaningful action; the preachers carry on, their audiences undiminished.[3] “Sensitivities” in this country apparently run largely in one direction. When a gospel concert is deemed too sensitive to proceed while hateful sermons go unchecked, it is fair to ask whether something in the official reflex is fundamentally skewed.
[5] Then there is the matter of his name. Are we now to judge a man by what his parents named him? Israel is a name as old as scripture, borne by a patriarch honoured across the Abrahamic faiths, and by countless people since. Pettiness of this kind does nothing for Palestine; it only makes us a laughingstock.
[6] As for Houghton’s expression of support for Israel after 7 October 2023, he was hardly alone. People the world over condemned the Hamas attack and expressed sympathy for its victims. Are we going to bar them all? And while an artist’s reaction to that atrocity is held against him, we had no trouble welcoming Donald Trump to Kuala Lumpur last year with song and dance on the tarmac. No one has done more to shield Israel diplomatically, and keep the Israeli war machine going with arms and money than Trump. If the objection truly rests on humanitarian principle, as the USIA insists, the welcome accorded to Israel’s most important patron should trouble it far more than a gospel singer. The inconsistency speaks for itself.
[7] None of this is to minimise what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel’s conduct there, the relentless killing of civilians, the use of starvation as a weapon, the systematic destruction of homes, hospitals and schools, amounts to genocide, as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a United Nations commission of inquiry have concluded.[4] Malaysia is right to condemn it in the harshest terms and right to stand with the Palestinian people.
[8] But principled foreign policy is one thing; parochialism is quite another. Our solidarity with Palestine is not strengthened one whit by cancelling a Christian concert in Kota Kinabalu. It only tells Malaysian Christians that their faith and their gatherings are subject to veto on the flimsiest of pretexts, and it tells the world that our moral outrage is selective: we pick on a gospel singer but dance with a leader who is directly responsible for the carnage in Palestine.
[9] Sabah, of all places, prides itself on harmony among its many communities. It would be a sad day if that tradition were surrendered to two police reports and a misplaced sense of grievance. We can defend Palestine without abandoning reason, and we can hold firm to our foreign policy without trampling on the rights of our own citizens. I hope sanity will prevail in Sabah.
[Dennis Ignatius |Kuala Lumpur |29 September 2026]
[1]Sabah police recommend deferring gospel singer Israel Houghton’s concert | Malaysiakini (Bernama) | 28 Sep 2026
[2][USIA and Islamic NGOs urge review of Israel Houghton concert permit — confirm headline] | Sabah TV | 29 Sep 2026
[3] ‘Enough is enough!’ DAP MP demands action against ‘divisive’ preacher |Malaysiakini |29 Sept 2026
[4][Amnesty International report, Dec 2024; Human Rights Watch report, Dec 2024; UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, Sep 2025 — sources to be added]
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